December 14, 2014

Happy Birthday, Brother

Several years ago, a man several decades my senior bought me a birthday card. The card he looked for and then chose was one of those relative birthday cards that said, “Happy Birthday, Brother.” In case it needed saying, the idea was that I was his brother in Christ. He was putting us on equal terms.

In heaven, or whatever you choose to call the next chapter of eternal life, Moses, the Apostle Peter, John Wesley and I will be the same age. Brothers.

In You and Me Forever, Francis Chan tries to put across the idea of seeing your spouse in terms of eternity. To see him or her as a spiritual being whose existence transcends this life; goes beyond this world.

With an expenditure of only a couple of dollars, the birthday card helped me see an eternal truth that I knew to be true, but I had never internalized.

When the Apostle Paul writes, “Brothers and sisters,” at various points in his letters, he’s writing to people he knew, and he’s writing to me and you.

The eternal life we entered into when we decided to follow Christ transcends chronology as we know it.